


Shallow Focus, Long Lens

by dracofiend



Category: Lewis (TV)
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2011-11-21
Updated: 2011-11-21
Packaged: 2017-10-26 11:53:17
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 721
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/282729
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/dracofiend/pseuds/dracofiend
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Hathaway works, and thinks, and steps in and out of focus. Gennish.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Shallow Focus, Long Lens

**Author's Note:**

> Warning: Written by an American, not reviewed by a Briton.

  
Hathaway doesn’t hover. He stands with his hands entrenched in trouser pockets, or wool coat pockets, or sometimes locked behind his back. He stands off to the side, some short distance behind, keeping himself in the corner of his inspector’s eye, waiting for the moment when his presence shifts from superfluous to necessary, from background to foreground, from landscape to “Home, James,” or “All right, let’s talk to the husband/janitor/attendant on call at the time.” Lewis leaves no stone unturned, and sometimes, when Hathaway is standing with his head bowed to his shoes, not eavesdropping but observing with momentary sideways flicks of his eyes, narrowed against the hesitant Oxford sun—sometimes he contemplates the stones left unturned.

Such thoughts invariably enhance his posture, drawing his spine upright as he takes a sharp breath through the nose. His chin remains tucked low; he prefers to avoid the direct gaze of speculative self-revelation. It brings out that certain destructive quality in him, one he has come to recognize. It puts him at a loss, and a gig with the Almighty hasn’t exactly sorted it.

“All right, Sergeant,” comes Lewis’ voice, breaking neatly into Hathaway’s cul-de-sac ruminations. The inspector’s unbuttoned jacket flaps as he walks, the creases frowning in his face growing more distinct with his approach. “Back to the station. I want you to check up on Mr. Woodleigh’s story about being in Blackpool last Tuesday through Saturday. Said he stayed with his sister, a Mrs. Janice Tremont, and returned home around seven on Saturday night.”

“If he’d been back an hour or so earlier, that would put him in the area just at the right time,” Hathaway replies, walking alongside Lewis toward the car.

“Yeah—that’s why I want you to pull the tollbooth CCTV footage. He said he took the M6 down.”

Hathaway clicks the vehicle unlocked; his mind clicks forward in divergent directions. It is the way he must work, with Lewis. “And you sir? Will you be paying a visit to the deceased’s former place of employment?”

Lewis’ forehead crinkles as he leans against the passenger side door. “Nah, not yet. Drop me at his fitness center instead. I want to have a word with his personal trainer first—he may be the last person who saw David Tigler alive.” Lewis snaps open his door and gets in. Hathaway follows.

“Incidentally,” Hathaway says, turning on the ignition, “are we still on for squash tomorrow?” His glance slides past Lewis as he turns to reverse the car.

Lewis shuts his eyes and groans. “I shouldn’t have reminded you.”

“I hadn’t forgotten.”

“No,” Lewis snorts. “You wouldn’t.”

There is a pause in which Hathaway shifts into first gear and eases onto the gas, and thinks of Lewis, sweating through his shirt while he himself stands at the periphery, listening to (not looking at) Lewis panting painfully, waiting for the exhaled _Go on_ that will bring James forward into Lewis’ view, and the clumsy bulk of James’ purpose will be fully formed, resolving, and resolved, to brightest clarity.

“James?”

Hathaway snaps back to himself without a blink. “Sir?”

“Is everything all right?”

“Fine, sir. Why do you ask?”

“Because I said, ‘Are we meeting at nine?’ about two minutes ago and you haven’t answered.”

“Sorry, sir. My attention was elsewhere.” Hathaway nods toward the windscreen and doesn’t bother looking over to visually confirm the skeptical rise of Lewis’ eyebrow. “Nine suits me perfectly.”

“Okay then,” Lewis replies, settling back. “With any luck, your attention will be ‘elsewhere’ tomorrow during our game. Give me old back a sporting chance.”

“Not so old, sir,” Hathaway says. “Just feeble.”

Lewis throws him a dark look. Hathaway turns to receive it this time, with a grin.

“I’ll bring the paracetamol.”

“Eyes front, lad,” Lewis commands, and Hathaway obeys with an automatic tilt of his head. Lewis resumes their discussion of the case. Hathaway listens and thinks of unturned stones, and makes suggestions to further their investigation of the crime. He thinks of Lewis’ profile at the edge of his sight, of distance, perspective, of remaining in frame until the moment he will stride forward to Lewis, reaching out. He will shed his nature as a near-far thing; he will traverse uncertainties with an uncertain foot, and he will come at last into focus, permanently.  



End file.
